Metric

Six LPs into an inspiring career that's seen them collaborate with legends like Lou Reed, perform with the Rolling Stones, entertain the Queen of England, become the first band in history to score their first Top 20 commercial radio hit in the U.S. without the backing of an outside label, win a plethora of awards including Junos for Album of the Year and Artist of the Year, pen the theme song for Twilight: Eclipse with Howard Shore (for which the music garnered nominations for both an Oscar and a Grammy), release an interactive app directly to fans, and set up an esoteric toll-free number for their dedicated listeners to navigate the past and future of their music, Metric have their creative process on lock. But nothing about Pagans in Vegas, set for release in September 2015, came together like any other Metric record. For starters, it was born during the band's scheduled year off, when frontwoman Emily Haines retreated to Nicaragua and found herself writing on acoustic guitar while guitarist-producer Jimmy Shaw became obsessed with his CS80 synth back home in Toronto. When it came time to start turning these explorations into an album, they turned to the band's go-to mixer, Grammy-nominated John O'Mahony, to co-produce alongside Shaw. "The songs that made it onto Pagans in Vegas weren't written with an overarching concept in mind," Shaw says. "Synthetica was about the battle between what's human and what's artificial, and integrating technology into our lives," Haines explains, referring to the band's — Haines, Shaw, bassist Josh Winstead and drummer Joules Scott-Key — acclaimed 2012 LP. "And with this record we were making music for the joy of it. We're still in the game as musicians and people, although the game has gotten increasingly unrecognizable to us."

Photo Credit: Alysse Gafkjen